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Agile + Branding, Sitting in a Tree

Abstract/Description

Many people think of branding as logos and colors. But, there’s more to this branding thing than you may realize. *Every encounter a customer has with your product is a brand impression*. Understanding and applying brand will always make your product more successful.

Maybe you’ve noticed brand and marketing managers don’t seem to get Agile. Perhaps you view branding as an annoying, superficial requirement pushed on you by managers who don’t understand rapid development.

I’m a design craftsman with a marketing background working at an Agile shop. In agile software development, my observation has been that the full benefits of branding are often not considered and sometimes even ignored. From my experience as a designer in an agile world, I can assure you brands can *AND* do actually benefit from the agile process.

I’ll be sharing three real-world product stories that illustrate how agile development works with brand:

* **A mom and pop startup** – How we discovered and built the right brand for the product, embracing change along the way.
* **A stand-alone application for an existing brand** – How we iterated and evolved the brand as we continually tested it with real customers.
* **A data-driven application for a large regional company** – How we worked with the organization’s marketing management team to push the brand into new territory with a digital product.

You’ll see how I applied brands through iterating, listening to customers, working with business people, attention to good design, reflection, simplicity and embracing changing requirements.

A company’s brand — and how it’s applied — is *THE* differentiating factor in products. As developers, designers and product managers, let’s work together to make the most of it in our applications.

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